Around this time last year, I was in a meeting when my boss tapped me on the shoulder and told me Steve Jobs had passed away. For a moment we sat there in front of these large windows that poured light into the office. It seemed like a typical day outside. Not hot, not cold, not rainy nor windy. Just fine.

I was filled with sadness, but the experience of being sad about his death was surreal. I didn’t know the guy at all, except from the legend I accumulated over the years from reading countless articles, books and watching bad quality videos from the 90s on YouTube. To me it felt strange to see so many people around the world in tears over the death of a man they’ve never met.

An event this big I would write or comment or Tweet about. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. He was someone I looked up to and admired. And writing about it, at the time, was just…

Sheepishly, I didn’t know who Steve Jobs was until I was 21. Yet at 12, I was already affected by something he had influenced: Toy Story. Pixar, the creators of the film, was formed by a group of engineers and animators that Steve purchased from Star Wars maker George Lucas. The importance of Toy Story to me at that age was phenomenal. It changed the way I looked and believed in animated souls and it ignited my imagination for years to come.

Steve had an incredibly fascinating life: Born and given up for adoption, later in life co-founded Apple who’s influence on the computer industry is astronomical, had an illegitimate child, got kicked out of Apple, founded another company called NeXT, saved another company which became Pixar, came back to Apple and was responsible for the most successul turn-around in history, brought to the world products that extended beyond their functional paradigms where people became emotionally attached to their devices, and revolutionised the music industry, the mobile industry and paved the way for Apple in leading the post-PC era.

He may have died one year ago, but his legacy lives on.